Trisha Garland: [00:00:00] Welcome to Demystifying Instructional Design. My name is Trish Garland. I am a high school teacher who's currently studying instructional design with Rebecca at UMass Boston. She has given me this very cool opportunity to host today's episode. Funny enough, I'm actually going to be interviewing one of my other professors, Rob Pearson.
So let's get to it. Rob, would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your career?
Rob Pearson: Sure. Thanks Trisha. And so delighted to be with you and chatting. My name's Rob Pearson. And I've been an instructional designer and in the L&D space for my entire career, which is pushing 40 years now. Even saying that is a little bit shocking And oddly enough, unlike many instructional designers who kind of fell into it mid-career, there I was in my mid twenties [00:01:00] starting a PhD program at Syracuse University in instructional design. So a very unique entryway into the profession, into the career of instructional design and also I discovered instructional design early on in my career. In fact, right at the beginning. So, I've spent my career mostly vendor side working for organizations, selling learning services mostly into the corporate space, and was very much in the middle of all the startup activity around e-learning in the late nineties when we all thought we were gonna become millionaires.
I did not. And I became really kind of quite fascinated and interested in the business side of instructional design and building businesses around it. Recently I've been a consultant [00:02:00] and freelancing and working on some pretty fascinating projects and, I think most exciting of all coming to this place, dare I say, in the twilight of my career I found UMB and UMB found me and now I'm teaching the introductory gateway course to instructional design.
And what an amazing and exciting opportunity that is for me, someone who wanted to be a professor way, way back, and that door never opened for me. Or maybe better put other doors open for me. So here I am.
Trisha Garland: Could you tell us about some of the new insights you've gained since joining the UMD faculty?
Rob Pearson: One of the things I think you learn most when you start to teach is how little you know. And that's certainly been the case during my time at [00:03:00] UMB. I think and, and maybe these aren't striking learnings or, maybe just more things that have come more into focus for me during my teaching experience.
I think first of all. Just the, the amazing and interesting breadth of folks that are drawn to instructional design. I mean, we come from everywhere. And I think that's a real strength for the field, a real strength for the profession. And I've been, I've been really struck by that. And and I also think, in particular with the 6 0 1 course, the opportunity to really think through how to talk about, not just ADDIE, but weaving together the story around learning theories and instructional design theories and models and how instructional designers can really leverage the science behind instructional design, which is [00:04:00] enormously powerful an d enormously validated, I think has probably been one of the most important parts of what I've gotten out of my time teaching so far.
Trisha Garland: Is there anything you would love to see added to the UMass program or to other instructional design programs?
Rob Pearson: Yeah, what a great question and something I think all of us who are privileged to be teaching in instructional design programs we think about. I mean, we, we are in a field that is evolving rapidly and in a world that's evolving rapidly and not just fueled by technology, but also by the latest science around how we learn. So we're hardly a static profession. So your question about, you know, how do we keep up to date with that, I think is a [00:05:00] really important one.
I think what comes to mind for me more than anything would be layering in the kinds of skills and experiences that I found particularly useful as a practicing instructional designer in working with clients and working with clients within the context of complex organizations. So, you know, to boil that down to perhaps, let's call that consulting skills.
So being able to have those conversations, those very nuanced conversations with clients and help to tease out, you know, the difference between, you know, clients stated wants and what their needs really are. That's really the magic I think of, of the analysis phase of instructional design and indeed of any design, science, design practice.[00:06:00]
Trisha Garland: To follow up on that, do you have any advice for new or aspiring instructional designers like myself on how to build relationships with clients?
Rob Pearson: I think it, it just, it fundamentally comes back to consistently asking the question or coming back to the question like what is the problem we are trying to solve?
And I think we are often, as instructional designers in a position where our clients, in essence, are giving us the solution and asking us to execute on it. And having the confidence but also the interpersonal skills and the empathy to be able to ask that question - what's the problem - in ways that fit the moment. And I think you just get better at that by, by practice, by doing it and not being afraid to ask that question.
Trisha Garland: At the end of your 2021 [00:07:00] interview with Rebecca, she asked, what's your prediction for the future of instructional design? You had an interesting response: innovate or die out. It's been three and a half years, and I wondered if you would reflect on that prediction
Rob Pearson: When you shared that with me in our initial discussion for this interview,
I was somewhat horrified that I would be so dark. Maybe it was Covid. I, I don't know. Although the times now we're pretty dark too, but we won't go there. Let me, let me recast that and say that instructional designers, I think, need to innovate and flourish. And I think that that's a much more positive way of thinking about the need for us to continue to push the boundaries of our practice, continue to keep up to date with the [00:08:00] latest research and, and the latest innovations to keep up to date with the latest technology and tools.
To be to be in our own practice, voracious learners.
Trisha Garland: I really like the innovate and flourish idea. It definitely puts a more positive spin on things.
Rob Pearson: I can see, I can see t-shirts and coffee mugs.
Trisha Garland: Yes. Speaking about innovating, I'd love to hear your thoughts about AI specifically and the value you see it bringing to the various steps of the ADDIE process.
Rob Pearson: I've certainly had the opportunity to use AI infused tool sets in some of the more recent projects that I've worked on. I mean, AI, it seems to be baked into everything now. But, maybe just some some global comments at, at a 30,000 [00:09:00] foot level around, around what AI has done for me in, in the project work.
So it, it's allowed me maybe not necessarily to do things better or differently, although perhaps. But for sure I've been able to do things faster and I've been able to do things that I might have in past years needed to go to someone else to support with. So AI has really allowed me to be a one man band, a one person band consultant. I can cover off a lot more bases and I can move a lot faster than I used to. So fundamentally, I think that comes down to productivity. And so that for me, that's been the biggest kind of mind blowing part of AI. So I'll give you some [00:10:00] examples.
And again, these are, these are tasks that I would've done in a very manual way in the past, but with AI, I'm able to do them in a much faster way. So
let's take analysis, for example, the first phase in the ADDIE model. So oftentimes, I have the opportunity, and indeed there are times when the consulting work I do is only about analysis. I do an environmental scan of some kind, so that might involve research secondary research. It might involve indeed primary research, doing document reviews.
But more often than not, it involves interviewing key stakeholders. So in days past, I would take those interviews and, and I would laboriously transcribe them and read them over and I might print them [00:11:00] out and sort of cut out little pieces and paste them on the wall and put them into categories, and then move them around, and then the next day come back and shift them again.
With AI, I can quickly use tool sets to do the transcription and then take those transcripts and take those text files and put them into, say, chatGPT, and ask that tool to recommend. , or derive, thematic categorizations of the content. And so that allows me to get to that place of insight much more quickly than in the past.
And then I think similarly from a development standpoint you know, being able to generate drafts of content., curriculum outlines - at least initial concepts - much more quickly. Well, literally in an instant that [00:12:00] gives me a head start on a fully conceived and finished design solution.
Trisha Garland: Are there any specific AI infused tool sets that you would say a student like myself should definitely be sure to check out?
Rob Pearson: What I've learned from, from the students that I've had the good fortune to learn with.
There's seems to be dozens and dozens of tools but I think. I think the tool that I go to most often is, is chatGPT, and, and there are some competitors there as well, similar tool sets, but essentially giving it an input and asking it for you know, to do some complex thinking about it and, and to offer an output that would feed into either, either, well, really just any of the phases in ADDIE I've got chatGPT up pretty much open and running [00:13:00] all the time now.
Trisha Garland: I think we all do.
Rob Pearson: I was just talking to a friend yesterday. This doesn't necessarily relate to instructional design, but he, he's been using it to help him come up with the title for a new book. So he, he puts in a title and he, he said, you know, what would be the best selling title for this book on Amazon or something? How would you rate it out of 10? And it comes, well this is kind of an 8 out of 10. And then he'll tweak it and he's says, I finally got it to 10 out of 10. Well, yeah, it's just crazy. Right.
So, so again, it, it, it's really all about I think first and foremost for me and, and as I use the tools, perhaps I'll become more sophisticated in leveraging their power to an even greater extent. But it's, it's really about allowing me to do complex tasks much faster and on my own than I just wouldn't have been able to do [00:14:00] in the past.
Trisha Garland: I've actually had some of my high school students use chatGPT for different tasks and they seem appalled that I'm telling them to use it because they've received the message that using AI is wrong.
Rob Pearson: It's cheating. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely, and and I've seen it used, I've had colleagues use it to analyze spreadsheets.
Yeah, it is pretty remarkable.
Trisha Garland: So, as I mentioned, I'm a high school teacher hoping to sometime soon enter the instructional design field. I'm wondering if you have any specific advice for someone like myself who's about to enter the field during this particular moment in history.
Rob Pearson: I've always been enormously positive about the potential of our field to be a really engaging and exciting and creative profession. I continue to [00:15:00] feel that way. And in fact my, my optimism and excitement only grows with every passing year. I think what we do as instructional designers - going back to some of our earlier conversation - as fundamentally being problem solvers. , particularly as it relates to, to performance challenges within organizations is it's, it's a skill that is only going to increase in demand and importance within organizations.
So I think, as individuals like yourself think about perhaps moving into a role as a full-time instructional designer - kind of with that label on it - I think it's, it's, I the future is really around- for our [00:16:00] profession, I believe - is really around the front end of ADDIE. It's around the analysis piece.
It's around the design piece. The, the tools are gonna spit out the, the product and the value in what we do is at the front end. It's at the front end and it's at the back end. So it's, it's figuring out what the problem is. It's imagining and conveying a compelling learning solution that meets that, that need, and at the backend it's evaluating and assessing the value that that solution ultimately delivers.
Trisha Garland: It sounds like you're saying that the most important thing for folks entering the field is how they see themselves in it. How they see their role...
Rob Pearson: their role, and and, and to very much. see that role as, as a problem solving analytical value add role [00:17:00] within an organization, not as a, not as a order taker to build out courses because ultimately, and we're even at that place now, take any of the, the instructional or the , e-learning tools. Authoring tools. I mean, you, you just say, I want a course on this, and out it comes. The hard part is knowing what course to design or, or the important part is knowing what course to design.
Trisha Garland: I think I learned that from you when I took your foundations course last semester.
Rob Pearson: Yeah. Funny how that sneaks in there.
Trisha Garland: Do you see an exciting future for instructional design as an academic discipline?
Rob Pearson: When I think about the first session in 6 0 1, when we talk about, we go around the [00:18:00] table, the virtual table on our Zoom call, and we talk about why we're all here. And I would say I'd be interested in your thoughts on this too, Trisha.
I, I think the response I hear most often is, well, I've sort of been doing instructional design for a while, but I, I wanna know if I'm actually doing it right. And so so I think, I think, an academic preparation or a, a formal prep, let's not call it an academic preparation, but a formal preparation for instructional designers I think is really important.
And like do we want, do we want engineers building bridges without having taken engineering? Do we want architects building buildings without having taken architecture classes? This confluence that we talk about in 6 0 1 between art, craft [00:19:00] and science. I think being exposed to that and seeing, seeing how that comes to life, I think that can only really have its beginning in a formal preparation.
Trisha Garland: Do you think it would make sense for instructional design to be offered as an undergraduate discipline rather than as a graduate discipline?
Rob Pearson: Well, it is fascinating that instructional design programs in North America in the US and in Canada and in and in Europe as well, they do all tend to be graduate programs.
Masters of ED or Masters of Design programs, and I've always been fascinated by that. I'm, I'm not sure why that is the case and I don't think it needs to be. One of the things that's always bothered me about our profession is that people only learn about it when they're mid-career.
Like why is that? That's probably a failing of the professional [00:20:00] associations a lot of us belong to. You know, why can't high school students think I want to be an instructional designer? Like that's, it seems like a silly thing, right? But, but why not? It's this amazing creative, highly value adding profession that nobody's heard of.
And gosh, if it was one thing that would be great for us to change, it would be that.
Trisha Garland: Rob, this conversation has been really interesting. You have so much insight to share with new and aspiring instructional designers like myself. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.
Rob Pearson: Thanks, Trish.
It, it was a real privilege to meet with you. Thank you.